The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 10

by John Dryden

On the other hand, the Third Part has passages in a higher tone of poetry; particularly the whole character of James in the fable of the Pigeons and the Buzzard: but it is enough to fulfil the author's promise in the preface, that the parts do each in general preserve a peculiar character and style, though occasionally sliding into that of the others.

It is a main defect of the plan just detailed, that it necessarily limited the interest of the poem to that crisis of politics when it was published. A work, which the author announces as calculated to attract the favour of friends, and to animate the malevolence of enemies, is now read with cold indifference. He launched forth into a tide of controversy, which, however furious at the time, has long subsided, leaving his poem a disregarded wreck, stranded upon the shores which the surges once occupied.

Setting aside this original defect, the First and Last Parts of the poem, in particular, abound with passages of excellent poetry. In the former, it is worthy attention, with what ease and command of his language and subject Dryden passes from his sublime description of the immortal Hind, to brand and stigmatise the sectaries by whom she was hated and persecuted; a rare union of dignity preserved in satire, and of satire engrafted upon heroic poetry. The reader cannot, at the same time, fail to observe the felicity with which the poet has assigned prototypes to the dissenting churches, agreeing in character with that which he meant to fix upon their several congregations. The Bear, unlicked to forms, is the emblem of the Independents, who disclaimed them;[79] the Wolf, which hunts in herds, to the classes and synods of the Presbyterian church; the Hare, to the peaceful Quakers; the wild Boar, to the fierce and savage Anabaptists, who ravaged Germany, the native country of that animal. With similar felicity, the "bird, who warned St Peter of his fall," is, from that circumstance, and his nocturnal vigils, afterwards assigned as the representative of the Catholic clergy. Above all, the attention is arrested by the pointed description of those dark and sullen enthusiasts, who, scarcely agreeing among themselves upon any peculiar points of doctrine, rested their claim to superior sanctity upon abominating and contemning those usual forms of reverence, by which men, in all countries since the beginning of the world, have agreed to distinguish public worship from ordinary or temporal employments. The whole of this First Part of the poem abounds with excellent poetry, rising above the tone of ordinary satire, and yet possessing all its poignancy. The difference, to those against whom it is directed, is like that of being blasted by a thunder-bolt, instead of being branded with a red-hot iron.

The First Part of "The Hind and Panther," although chiefly dedicated to general characters, contains some reasoning on the grand controversy, similar to that which occupies the Second. The author displays, with the utmost art and energy of argumentative poetry, the reasons by which he was himself guided in adopting the Roman Catholic faith. He is led into this discussion, by mentioning the heretical doctrine of the Unitarians; and insists, that the Protestant churches, which have consented to postpone human reason to faith, by acquiescing in the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, are not entitled to appeal to the authority which they have waived, for arguments against the mystery of the real presence in the eucharist. This was a favourite mode of reasoning of the Catholics at the time, as may be seen from the numerous treatises which they sent forth upon the controversy. It is undoubtedly very fit to impose on the vulgar, but completely overshoots the mark at which it aims. For, if our yielding humble belief to one abstruse doctrine of divinity be sufficient to debar the exercise of our reason respecting another, it is obvious, that, by the same reason, the appeal to our understanding must be altogether laid aside in matters of doubtful orthodoxy. The Protestant divines, therefore, took a distinction; and, while they admitted they were obliged to surrender their human judgment in matters of divine revelation which were above their reason, they asserted the power of appealing to its guidance in those things of a finite nature which depend on the evidence of sense, and the consequent privileges of rejecting any doctrine, which, being within the sphere of human comprehension, is nevertheless repugnant to the understanding: therefore, while they received the doctrine of the Trinity as an infinite mystery, far above their reason, they contended against that of transubstantiation as capable of being tried by human faculties, and as contradicted by an appeal to them. In a subsequent passage, the author taxes the church of England with an attempt to reconcile contradictions, by admitting the real presence in the eucharist, and yet denying actual transubstantiation. Dryden boldly appeals to the positive words of scripture, and sums his doctrine thus:

The literal sense is hard to flesh and blood,

But nonsense never can be understood.

Granting, however, the obscurity or mystery of the one doctrine, it is a hard choice to be obliged to adopt, in its room, that which asserts an acknowledged impossibility.

In the Second Part, another point of the controversy is agitated; the infallibility, namely, which is claimed by the Roman church. The author appears here to have hampered himself in the toils of his own argument in a former poem. He had asserted in the "Religio Laici," that the Scriptures contained all things necessary for salvation; while he yet admitted, that those, whose bent inclined them to the study of polemical divinity, were to be guided by the expositions of the fathers, and the earlier, especially the written, traditions of the Church. There is, as has been noticed in the remarks on "Religio Laici," a certain vacillation in our author's arguments concerning tradition, while yet a Protestant, which prepares us for his finally reposing his doubts in the bosom of that church, which pretends to be the sole depositary of the earlier doctrines of Christianity, and claims a right to ascertain all doubts in point of faith, by the same mode, and with the same unerring certainty, as the original church in the days of the apostles and fathers. These doubts, with which Dryden seems to have been deeply impressed while within the pale of the Church of England, he now objects to her as inconsistencies, and accuses her of having recourse to tradition, or discarding it, as suited the argument which, for the time, she had in agitation. It is unnecessary here to trace the various grounds on which reformed churches prove, that the chain of apostolical tradition has been broken and shivered; and that the church, claiming the proud title of Infallible, has repeatedly sanctioned heresy and error. Neither is it necessary to shew, how the Church of England stops short in her reception of traditions, adopting only those of the primitive church. Something on these points may be found in the notes. I may remark, that Dryden is of the Gallican or low Church of Rome, if I may so speak, and rests the infallibility which he claims for her in the Pope and Council of the Church, and not in the Vicar of Christ alone. In point of literary interest, this Second Part is certainly beneath the other two. It furnishes, however, an excellent specimen of poetical ratiocination upon a most unpromising subject.

The Third Part refers entirely to the politics of the day; and the poet has endeavoured, by a number of arguments, to remove the deep jealousy and apprehensions which the king's religion, and his zeal for proselytism, had awakened in the Church of England. He does not even spare to allege a recent adoption of presbyterian doctrines, as the reason for her unwonted resistance to the royal will; and all the vigour of his satire is pointed against the latitudinarian clergy, or, as they were finally called, the Low Church Party, who now began to assert, what James at length found a melancholy truth, that the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance was not peremptorily binding, when the church herself was endangered by the measures of the monarch. Stillingfleet, the personal antagonist of our author, in the controversy concerning the Duchess of York's posthumous declaration of faith, is personally and ferociously attacked. The poem concludes with a fable delivered by each of the disputants, of which the moral applies to the project and hopes of her rival. We have already said, that which is told by the Panther, as it is most spirited and pointed, proved, to the great regret of the author, most strictly prophetic. It is remarkable for containing a beautiful character of King James, as the other exhibits a satirical portrait of the historian Burnet, with whom the court party in general, and Dryden personally, was then at enmity.